Skull
2001
Blueboard ink print
Variale dimensions
Polish artist Piotr Uklanski manipulates media images to question our society’s icons. Challenging the conventions and codes that govern artistic practices is at the heart of his work. Skull is a black-and-white photomontage of several naked female bodies with a man's body in the centre. It may echo a vanitas or pay tribute to Salvador Dali and Philippe Halsman’s In Voluptate Mors (1951).
The man at the centre of the composition is the artist himself. His outstretched arms recall Christ. His ecstatic, half-closed eyes suggest that he is in a kind of creative trance.
Uklanski’s Skull was presented for the first time by the Pinault Collection at the Tri Postal in Lille during the 2008 exhibition “Passage du temps” (“Passage of Time”).
The man at the centre of the composition is the artist himself. His outstretched arms recall Christ. His ecstatic, half-closed eyes suggest that he is in a kind of creative trance.
Uklanski’s Skull was presented for the first time by the Pinault Collection at the Tri Postal in Lille during the 2008 exhibition “Passage du temps” (“Passage of Time”).
Exhibitions
© Piotr Uklanski
Courtesy the Artist, Gagosian Gallery, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin and Galeria Massimo De Carlo
